Sunday, April 29, 2007

hip tranquil chick #81: hot mommas

Bonjour! Welcome to the 81st edition of the Hip Tranquil Chick podcast: a guide to life on and off the yoga mat. Produced at the Pink Palace in Washington, DC. View our shownotes at hiptranquilchick.com/blog.

Today’s podcast is a discussion of The Hot Mommas™ Project with Kathy Korman Frey. In 2001 Ms. Frey founded Vision Forward, a consulting firm focused on accelerated, results-based planning. In 2005, Vision Forward established a research arm - The Hot Mommas™ Project - chronicling the best practices of women leaders in professional AND personal realms.

The Hot Mommas™ Project was developed to fulfill an obvious gap in educational materials. Business skills were being taught but few tools were given to instructors to teach strategic management of time and critical issues outside of work. If our future leaders and entrepreneurs are not being taught how to balance their personal lives and their careers, how can one expect them to be successful at either? Kathy noted this need and started looking to figure out just how one could succeed in business and in life. Out of this realization came the Hot Mommas™ Project, a researched based curricula that aims at finding out the keys to doing everything and doing it well, by taking an objective look at women who are already doing this.

Kathy and her team of “Hot Mommas™” have worked with hundreds of companies and thousands of business executives. During her time as a business consultant, a nonprofit executive, and an educator, she was around women who exemplified the idea of success. It was around the stories of professional women who were successful in multiple aspects of their lives that the Hot Mommas™ protagonist was born.

Ms. Frey is an adjunct professor at The George Washington University School of Business where she has a specialty in unique curriculum development. Ms. Frey developed the entrepreneurship curriculum for Visa’s Practical Money Skills website. In addition, one of her cases developed for The Hot Mommas™ Project is the recipient of a 2006 Coleman Foundation case award. Ms. Frey was also a part of creating GW’s Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership (WEL) curriculum which won a National Excellence in Entrepreneurship Education Award, Model Specialty Program. She is also the current Associate Director of the Center For Entrepreneurial Excellence or CFEE, an initiative through the George Washington University. Prior to teaching at GW Ms. Frey published “Granny’s Goodies,” a Harvard Business School case study, as well as contributing research for the award-winning book The Collaboration Challenge: How Nonprofits and Businesses Succeed through Strategic Alliances.

Ms. Frey earned her BA in English from The University of Virginia and received her MBA from Harvard Business School. She lives in DC with her entrepreneur husband Josh, Chief Executive Toddler Maxwell, Chief Executive Baby Lilah & VP Doggie Relations Foxy.

2 comments:

Hilda
said...

Hi Kimberly,

I'm constantly amazed at the stuff you cover even after all these episodes. This is my new favorite episode and one I'm going back to listen through again. I'm at a point in life where I realize how much community and friendship matters and this episode was revealing as to why and how smart people tend to do things on their own, but really need community and friends to branch out and balance their lives. I hear ya.

Wow. Kathy is amazing. Kimberly, I have to stop listening to your podcasts when I am running - it is becoming a frequent occurrence that I have to stop running because I hyperventilate because of something one of your interviewees says that really hits home!! lol

This time it was the talk of relationships and how important they are to all the hot mommas. Back in January I asked myself those questions about whether my goals would be supported by my partner, sadly realising that the answer was no. Boy am I glad I asked, though, because since I ended that relationship my life has taken off in all directions!

Hope you gals are having fun on retreat, wish I was there comparing planner pads with you all :-)